Electron and ion acceleration by relativistic shocks: particle-in-cell simulations

Abstract

The problem of particle acceleration by collisionless astrophysical shocks is of fundamental importance for the cosmic ray origin problem and for the high energy astrophysics as a whole. Fast magnetohydrodynamical shocks produced by relativistic jets are considered as very likely sites of cosmic ray acceleration. While cosmic ray acceleration by both non-relativistic and ultra relativistic shocks was studied in some details, the shocks of moderate Lorentz factors have attracted much less attention so far, while they are important for modeling gamma-ray burst afterglows and a number of other interesting objects. In this paper we present simulations of relativistic shock waves in electron-proton plasmas obtained with an implicit particle-in-cell code for the initial study the particle injection efficiencies.